Posts tagged ‘art’

So I went to listen to a lecture by Laurie Haycock at Cranbrook a few weeks ago, and it was definitely interesting, but quite beautiful. Most of the lecture she talked about the work she and her husband (Scott P. Makela) made together, and it was a tragic love story (Scott passed away very suddenly and she has been a widow for about 14 years now).

One of her Husband’s greatest accomplishments that she touched on was the typeface he created, called Dead History. It is licensed by Emigre and is a combination of serif and sans-serif typefaces. Scott used this typeface a lot in his pieces, and I think it’s very innovative and has a unique style to it that cannot be recreated.

Laurie seemed to focus a lot more on her husband’s work than her own, so below is one of the pieces her husband worked on. She said he was very obsessed with using the ‘twirl’ tool when designing thing (as evident in the picture) and it was very forward-thinking and dynamic in their time.

Lastly, one of the projects that Laurie and Scott were most proud of seemed to be the typeface used in the opening of Fight Club that some of their students actually created. I’ve never seen Laurie or her husband’s work before going to this lecture so it was nice that she mentioned something that has a much wider audience and received a lot of fame (since everyone has heard of Fight Club!).

Overall the lecture was very emotional since she definitely focused on the connection between her and her husband and how that affected the art they created.. They were great partners in life and in art and I am glad I went to the lecture and got to experience that. It also helped me to realize that I should break out of my shell and indulge myself more into my work to create something original and dynamic rather than something that will please everybody.

So I had an amazing spring break… one of the things I had the opportunity to do was to go to Signal Return Letter Press in Downtown Detroit and make some postcards… Below are a few of the ones I played around with. I really got a thrill out of doing this all by hand, and it definitely makes you appreciate the craft a lot more since it’s very time-consuming and tedious. I loved making this post cards and I definitely am more interested in hand-setting type and printing things the old-fashioned way! Hopefully I’ll get to go back soon and make some more 🙂

Nice quote that stopped me in my tracks. Even though I’m a Graphic Designer, I love doing project by getting messy (screen printing, drawing, painting, etc). I don’t think value will ever be lost in handmade art.

Forgot to upload this a while back but this was my final poster for our first project that focused on Order. My image is off a mural on a random building in Detroit, and essentially I wanted to communicate that there is a particular Pattern Language in the world of graffiti, and I think that this image was a perfect example of how someone took that pattern language for graffiti and switched it up and created something entirely new out of it, becoming more of a piece of public art than graffiti. I want the circles to contrast the grid-like brick pattern in the image and I really wanted the image to be the main focus..

This truly is a genius design in my opinion. Combining images and the simple letterform of an ampersand to basically state the title of the film without using any photographic images is impressive. If you took away ‘Coffee and cigarettes’ at the bottom, after spending some time looking at it, one would be able to recognize that there is a coffee cup in the bowl of the ampersand and that the end of it resembles the butt of a cigarette. This design is very simplistic yet imaginative since you really have to look at the form to understand what is being presented to you. Also, the fact that the ampersand was most likely not altered to fit the images into it (such as it wasn’t skewed or twisted, etc) also adds to the fascination and beauty of this piece. Also the use of a beige-type of background reminds you of the effect a coffee stain would have on a white table, or how the cigarette paper burns as you smoke it. There’s a feeling of simplicity and sophistication in this piece since it makes you feel like all you need is some coffee and cigarettes (:

Another great example of hand-drawn lettering. Not only do I like this because it’s done manually, but it’s extremely expressive. It’s use of a calming, cool color and the vines sprouting out from all over the letter contrast the mechanical designs inside of the letter itself. The letter just seems to burst into life and breaks all the rules and barriers that a typical letter should have. I think this is great inspiration to how Typography can be extremely expressive, and you can essentially make it whatever you want it to be.

I couldn’t agree more with this poster. Not only do I feel Typography is such a beautiful thing to study and practice, but there is so much respect for hand-lettering that I think is lost nowadays due to technology and printing. This is a dynamic composition since you have this bar going across diagonally that really emphasizes that hand-lettering is a lost ‘ART’, not just a skill. The various decorative typefaces are very interesting and play off of each other since they’re all so different. The words also kind of jump off the board and come at you, which also caught my eye when I saw this piece. I’m not sure who did it or where it’s from, but I think it’s gorgeous and I only wish that one day I can accomplish such precision and perfection in my hand-drawn designs.

This is another really attractive modular type system I stumbled upon. Obviously the colors are what attracted me first – they are very harmonious and calming – the words aren’t jumping out at you! One thing I noticed is right at the top, the N and U essentially mirror each other, but the artist used different colors, which helps to differentiate between the two. I enjoy that not all parts of these letters are strictly the same (the stroke weight of the T is larger than the U right next to it). This variation makes the typeface very interesting and fun to look at. I also enjoy the use of square and circular shapes, not just one or the other. The texture within these letters are also very intriguing and captivating – resembles wood or marble.

So I’ve discovered the astonishing work of Marian Bantjes, a canadian designer, and I am impressed to say the least. Not only is this cover to her book completely mind blowing, but the previews I’ve seen of all of the pages inside are even more impecable (pictures below). But to keep this related to Typography, the cover of this book is truly a work of art. At first glance, the intricate gold and silver design easily looks like it might swallow up the text, but the text stands on it’s own and is clear to see. Also, with the font being Silver and the rest of the design being Gold with tiny specs of silver, they balance each other out. I really enjoy that this typeface (I assume) was created just for this book and therefore hand-drawn (it is very clean and crisp but lacks the strict, uniform, mechanical aspect that most typefaces have nowadays – I like that it’s different! That makes it more unique to me). I do feel that the Design on the cover is the first thing in the hierarchy of this piece, but like I said that both work very well to it and kind of have this story-book feel to it (with the type having a sort of handwriting quality and the use of strictly gold and silver makes it very fantasy-like). I feel that works like this should be more respected in the art world, since nowadays the minimalist style is very popular (keep it stupid simple, keep it simple stupid), but works like this pay attention to the most minute details and I think that most people tend to overlook it. Another thing I was going to mention about the Type of this piece is that the serifs and legs extend and wrap around the design on the rest of the cover, which also unifies these two together. I guess if I stare at this a little longer I can come up with something deeper but I’m still in awe 😛 I really want to purchase this book now because I feel that it will inspire me a lot now as a growing designer, and in the future once I have a career!

I really enjoy the playfulness of these letters. The contrasting colors make both words kind of compete for attention, but they’re both equally important so it’s not an issue for this design. I like that the letters almost look like they were cut out of paper and linked into one another. The ribbon-like serifs unify the ribbon on the bottom left that says ‘unbreakable’. The design is very soft-looking but definitely jumps out at you and grabs your attention!